Stop buying seed packets every spring. Save seed from your strongest plants, dry it right, and store it cool and dark. Next year's garden replants itself for free, and each season it gets a little more adapted to your soil and your weather.
Seven common herbs can replace half your medicine cabinet. Echinacea for immunity, peppermint for digestion, chamomile for sleep. Grow them on a windowsill and dry what you don't use.
Assess the threats in your area before you buy gear. Food, water, and first aid come first, then a plan to bug in or bug out. Assume your neighbors won't stay neighborly when the lights stay off.
Knowledge costs nothing and weighs zero pounds. Take inventory of what you already own, set a monthly prepping budget like it's an insurance payment, and add one item at a time.
You can grow food on a balcony, a patio, or a windowsill. Good potting mix and the right container are all you need to get started. Even a few pots of greens beats zero fresh produce.
Twelve staples will feed your family for decades if you store them right. White rice, flour, honey, salt, sugar, and dried beans never really go bad. Keep them cold, dry, and sealed tight.
Twenty six ways to use a dollar's worth of cloth. Tourniquet, water pre-filter, sling, signal flag, trail marker, sweatband. Toss a few in every bag and vehicle you own.
Radishes go from seed to plate in four weeks. Lettuce grows in pots. Tomatoes and peppers forgive beginner mistakes. Start with these ten crops and you'll eat from your own dirt before summer ends.
You don't need a hive to put bees to work. Plant bright flowers that bloom long, skip the pesticides, and leave a shallow dish of water out. No pollination means no food, period.
When the cell towers go dark, your phone is a paperweight. A handheld radio and pre-arranged frequencies keep your family connected. Pick your gear, practice now, and know your channels before the grid drops.
Your refrigerator dies the moment the power does. A buried cooler makes a working root cellar, two nested clay pots become a desert fridge, and a bucket with a plunger washes clothes. These are not theories. They work.
Solar panels are useless without somewhere to store the power. Deep-cycle batteries hold what you generate, and a properly built bank keeps your lights on after sundown. Skip the car batteries. They are not made for this.
Gear
Being prepared in an emergency is essential to survival and can mean the difference between life and death. Every family will benefit from having a solid disaster preparedness plan in place that will help you to make the right decisions in an emergency. Prepare in Advance There are as many disast...
Gear
Ever wondered what happens when people need to get out of their house NOW due to fire, flood, hurricanes, etc? They run around trying to figure out what to take with them? Often there is NO time to grab valuables, clothes, etc. It is difficult to decide what to take on a moments notice. Imagine […]
Gear
Hearing such news most people would scramble, grasping for anything of supposed value without thinking clearly about what is truly essential to survive until the disaster passes. A prepper, someone who thought about what to do ahead of time and prepared for such emergencies, would simply grab the...
Gear
Without proper, reliable and durable equipment the basic tasks of finding or building shelter, cooking food, locating safe water, guarding against extreme weather, signaling for help, or even defending yourself will become an ongoing struggle, compounding an already stressful situation. When it c...